The death of the Chinese diplomat Wu Jianmin in a car accident in Wuhan on the 18th June robs China of one of its most moderate, experienced senior foreign policy thinkers. A native of the south east city of Chongqing, Wu, who was 77, had studied French during the 1960s, and served as a translator for Mao Zedong and other senior leaders in the final years of the Cultural Revolution era, participating in the first ever delegation sent from the People’s Republic to the United Nations in 1971 when it assumed its seat there. After the Reform and Opening up period started from 1978, he shifted over to more formal diplomatic work, serving as the ambassador to the United Nations, the Netherlands, and, most significantly, France.

Wu’s years in France from 1998 to 2003 were dominated by the attempts to lift the arms embargo imposed by the European Union (EU) on China after the 1989 incident. France’s President Chirac and Britain’s Tony Blair in particular made moves to attempt to sponsor removing the embargo, which was seen by China as carrying unfriendly symbolic meaning. With the announcement in 2003 by the then Premier Wen Jiabao of the EU and China enjoying `strategic partnership’ links, and the issuance of a highly positive Chinese State Council White Paper on the relationship, the feeling in Beijing was that the quiet, persistent diplomacy by, in particular, figures like Wu as paying off. It was, however, to prove erroneous. Pressure from the US in 2004 meant that the attempts failed. To this day, the embargo remains in place.

This set back did not have a negative impact on Wu’s balanced, open minded approach to relations between China and the outside world. At conferences from the mid 2000s onwards, I had the opportunity to hear him speak and talk to him, and, like over attendees, was struck by his eloquence, his huge experience, and his positive attitude. He was also one of the very few officials willing to listen to opinions he evidently disagreed with sympathetically and politely. He served in a number of academic and think tank positions, including as President of the China Foreign Affairs University, and Vice President of the China Nati0onal Association of International Studies.